KING LEAR QUOTES

"Though this knave came something saucily to the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledg'd."

Gloucester to Kent
Describes how Edmund was conceived. Gloucester is not repentant for having a bastard son; this will come back to haunt him later.

"We have divided / In three our kingdom; and 'tis our fast intent / To shake all cares and business from our age."

Lear to Gloucester/Kent
Out of laziness, Lear splits kingdom in three. Whichever daughter flatters Lear the most will get the most opulent third. (Abraham Lincoln's thoughts: "A nation divided cannot stand.")

"What shall Cordelia speak? Love, / and be silent."

Cordelia to audience
Cordelia's first words connect her to the audience. She refuses to flatter her father.

"Nothing, my lord."

Cordelia to Lear
She doesn't want anything from Lear except fatherly love.

"Let it be so: thy truth then be thy dow'r!"

Lear to Cordelia
Mocking her; since she won't flatter him, he won't give her anything to get married with.

"I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest / On her kind nursery."

Lear to Kent
Cordelia was his favorite, and he had planned to stay with Cordelia in his old age.

"Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak / When power to flattery bows?"

Kent to Lear
Calling him out on his flattery competition. (duty = Kent, power = Lear)

"If, on the tenth day following, / Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions, / The moment is thy death."

Lear to Kent
Banishing Kent from the kingdom because he spoke out against Lear in front of the Royal Court.

"Will you, with those infirmities she owes, / Unfriended, new adopted to our hate, / Dow'r'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath, / Take her, or leave her?"

Lear to Burgundy
Stabbing Cordelia in the back; impressing upon Burgundy that Cordelia is undesirable as a bride because he won't give her anything.

"It is no vicious blot, murther, or foulness, / No unchaste action, or dishonored step, / That hath depriv'd me of your grace and favor, / But even for want of that for which I am richer— / A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue / That I am glad I have not, though not to have it / Hath lost me in your liking."

Cordelia to Lear
She didn't commit a crime to lose Lear's love, she just retained her virtue and integrity, and in so doing, she has lost Lear's love.

"Better thou / Hadst not been born than not t' have pleas'd me better."

Lear to Cordelia
In response to Cordelia saying that she did nothing wrong. This quote shows just how unhinged Lear is.

"She is herself a dowry."

King of France to Lear
This guy recognizes the value of Cordelia's virtue and so he accepts her as his bride without any money from Lear.

"Not all the dukes of wat'rish Burgundy / Can buy this unpriz'd precious maid of me."

King of France to Burgundy
Mocking Burgundy for not recognizing Cordelia's true value, which is not in the form of money.

"I know you what you are."

Cordelia to Regan and Goneril
Cordelia is very intelligent and realizes that Goneril and Regan are conniving and will want to take over their father's power. She has the spunk and the verve to say this in front of the entire court.

"Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent's banishment."

Regan to Goneril
Foreshadowing the upsets in Lear's kingdom / conspiring to control Lear in his retirement

"Thou, Nature, art my goddess, to thy law / My services are bound. / Wherefore should I / Stand in the plague of custom, and permit / The curiosity of nations to deprive me, / For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines / Lag of a brother?"

Edmund (soliloquy)
Being a child born out of wedlock, he is enraged that a cultural tradition is holding him back from getting his father's power.

"Why brand they us / With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base? / Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take / More composition, and fierce quality, / Than doth within a dull, stale, tired bed / Go to th' creating a whole tribe of fops, / Got 'tween asleep and wake?"

Edmund (soliloquy)
Here Edmund is saying that since bastard children are born with fierce passion, they should be celebrated, even above legitimate children, because legitimate children are (literally) born from a sense of duty, rather than the passion that consumes lovers.

"I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue."

Edmund to Gloucester
Edmund presents to Gloucester the letter that he forged in Edgar's name, with a supposed (ridiculous) plot to murder their father and seize his lands and wealth.

"O villain, villain! his very opinion in the letter."

Gloucester to Edmund
Gloucester fails to see through this sham of Edmund's, and so he completely believes that Edgar actually wrote this letter to Edmund.

"An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!"

Edmund to audience
Criticizing Gloucester for blaming his fortune on the stars.
Also, here Shakespeare mocks the human desire to lay blame elsewhere besides on oneself.

"Some villain hath done me wrong."
"That's my fear."

Edgar, Edmund
Edmund now feigns innocence in order to gain Edgar's trust, so that he can betray him later.

"Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit."

Edgar to audience
Announcing his plans to dupe Gloucester and Edgar into allowing him to have the power, lands and wealth.

"Put on what weary negligence you please, / You and your fellows; I'd have it come to question. / If he distaste it, let him to my sister, / Whose mind and mine I know in that are one, / Not to be overrul'd. Idle old man, / That still would manage those authorities / That he hath given away!"

Goneril to Oswald
Conspiring to take over Lear's power. She wants the servants to dress as she says so that she can show Lear who's boss, even now.

"Now, banish'd Kent, / If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn'd, / So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov'st, / Shall find thee full of labors."

Kent to audience
Working up the courage not to be outspoken, and showing his devotion to Lear; he'll disguise himself and come back to serve Lear.

"if thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb."

Fool to Kent
The Fool is telling Kent that he's foolish to follow Lear, because Lear doesn't deserve it.

"thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav'st thy golden one away."

Fool to Lear
The Fool has license to criticize anyone, even the king, and so he does here. The "golden one" is Cordelia (she has blonde hair), and the Fool is calling Lear out on letting her go.

"I had rather be any kind o' thing than a Fool, and yet I would not be thee"

Fool to Lear
I don't like being a fool very much, but being you would be worse.

"The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, / That it had it head bit off by it young."

Fool to Lear
The Fool points out that Regan and Goneril want to take over Lear's power, just like the baby cuckoo bird eventually takes over its host's nest.

"Yet have I left a daughter."

Lear to Goneril
Lear thinks he can still count on Goneril to be on his side. (Oh how wrong he is.)

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child!"

Lear to Goneril/Albany
Lear is realizing that Goneril and Regan are completely ungrateful and is burned by it.

"Striving to better, oft we mar what's well."

Albany to Goneril
This is the first sign that Albany wants to be reasonable about taking over Lear's power.

"Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise."

Fool to Lear
When you're young, you can bounce back from foolishness. The only thing that can protect you in old age is wisdom. (Lear obviously missed this.)

"Have you heard of no likely wars toward, / 'twixt the Dukes of Cornwall and Albany?"

Curan to Edmund
This is a consequence of Lear dividing the kingdom: Cornwall and Albany are now fighting for complete control of the whole kingdom.

"Pardon me: / In cunning I must draw my sword upon you. / Draw, seem to defend yourself; now quit you well.— / Yield! Come before my father. Light ho, here!— / Fly, brother."

Edmund to Edgar
Setting Edgar up.

"Look, sir, I bleed. . . . [Edgar] Fled this way, sir, when by no means he / could—
Persuade me to the murther of you lordship."

Edmund to Gloucester
Edmund's MO (modus operandi, mode of operation) is to gain people's trust, use that trust to his advantage, and then betray them.

"of my land, / Loyal and natural boy, I'll work the means / To make thee capable."

Gloucester to Edmund
Sealing the deal: now that Gloucester thinks Edgar was trying to kill Edmund, Gloucester entrusts his lands and wealth to him rather than to Edgar, his legitimate son.

"For you, Edmund, / Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant / So much commend itself, you shall be ours. / Natures of such deep trust we shall much need; / You we first seize on."

Cornwall to Edmund
IRONY!!! Edmund seems so virtuous because he supposedly foiled a plot to murder Gloucester, so now Cornwall is trusting him with some power.

"A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver'd, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave."

Kent to Oswald
Insulting Oswald to put him in his place, because Oswald has been strutting about the castle indulging his own self-interests, while Kent has always been loyal to Lear.

"a stone-cutter or a painter could not have made him so ill, though they had been but two years o' th' trade."

Kent to Cornwall
Stone-cutters and painters can make something beautiful even if they're not that skilled, but tailors have to be skilled to produce a work of art, and so a tailor fashioned Oswald at his birth, because Oswald is an abhorrence.

"Fetch forth the stocks! / You stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart, / We'll teach you."

Cornwall to Kent
Cornwall wants to emphasize that Lear no longer has any power, so he puts his most loyal servant into the stocks.

"Sir, I am too old to learn. / Call not your stocks for me, I serve the King, / On whose employment I was sent to you."

Kent to Cornwall
Kent tells Cornwall that he's too old to be punished, he's just serving the rightful king.

"My face I'll grime with filth, / Blanket my loins, elf all my hairs in knots, / And with presented nakedness outface / The winds and persecutions of the sky. / The country gives me proof and president / Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, / Strike in their numb'd and mortified arms / Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary; / And with this horrible object, from low farms, / Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills, / Sometimes with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers, / Enforce their charity."

Edgar to audience
Edgar's second soliloquy reveals his true biterness about Edmund and Gloucester.

"Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way."

Fool to Lear
The worst is yet to come. (speaking about Goneril and Regan)

"I would have all well betwixt you."

Gloucester to Lear
Playing the peacemaker.

"I cannot think my sister in the least / Would fail her obligation. If, sir, perchance / She have restrain'd the riots of your followers, / 'Tis on such ground and to such wholesome end / As clears her from all blame."

Regan to Lear
Putting their conspiracy into action. Goneril has already rejected Lear, so Lear goes to Regan for charity, but Regan rejects him too.

"O, sir, you are old, / Nature in you stands on the very verge / Of his confine. You should be rul'd and led / By some discretion that discerns your state / Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray you / That to our sister you do make return. / Say you have wrong'd her."

Regan to Lear
Again, Regan and Goneril are tag-teaming Lear to get his power from him.

"Age is unnecessary."

Lear to Regan
Recognizing that he's vulnerable in his old age.

"All's not offense that indiscretion finds / And dotage terms so."

Goneril to Lear

"Return to her? And fifty men dismiss'd? / No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose / To wage against the enmity o' th' air."

Lear to Goneril/Regan
This starts Regan and Goneril's process of stripping Lear of all his knights.

"Return to her? / Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter / To this detested groom."

Lear to Goneril/Regan
Goneril and Regan are passing Lear back and forth in an attempt to get him to surrender his power.

"Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty, / And thou art twice her love."

Lear to Goneril
Counting on Goneril to be more hospitable than Regan, because she flattered him more.

"What need you five and twenty? ten? Or five? / To follow in a house where twice so many / Have a command to tend you?"

Goneril to Lear
More cutting down the numbers of the knights Lear gets to keep.

"What need one?"

Regan to Lear/Goneril
Why does Lear even need one knight? He'll survive.

"you unnatural hags, / I will have such revenges on you both / That all the world shall—I will do such things— / What they are yet I know not, but they shall be / The terrors of the earth!"

Lear to Regan and Goneril
Cursing them for being ungrateful and turning him out.

"Shut up our doors, my lord, 'tis a wild night, / My Regan counsels well. Come out o' th' storm."

Cornwall to Gloucester
Telling Gloucester to shut Lear out. Gloucester does not say no, for which he will suffer later.

"But, true it is, from France there comes a power / Into this scatter'd kingdom; who already, / Wise in our negligence, have secret feet / In some of our best ports, and are at point / To show their open banner."

Kent to Gentleman
Letting the audience know that France is invading England. This means that Cordelia wants to overthrow Regan and Goneril to restore the power to its rightful owner, her father Lear.

"If you shall see Cordelia,-- / As fear not but you shall,--show her this ring; / And she will tell you who your fellow is."

Kent to Gentleman
The Gentleman is going to Cordelia. She does not know that Kent came back (disguised as Caius), so giving her this ring would let her know that she has an ally behind enemy lines.

"Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters' blessing: / here's a night pities neither wise man nor fool."

Fool to Lear
The Fool is begging Lear to beg Regan and Goneril to let him back in; the night is cold and terrible. Nature treats everyone the same, whether king or peasant.

"things that love night / Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies / Gallow the very wanderers of the dark, / And make them keep their caves: since I was man, / Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, / Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never / Remember to have heard."

Kent to Lear
Again, nature treats all men the same.

"I am a man / More sinn'd against than sinning."

Lear to Kent
Ultimate self-pity, which is the worst thing he can do at this point. He's lamenting what others have done to him rather than taking a hit to his pride by taking responsibility for what he himself has done to cause his downfall.

"When priests are more in word than matter; / When brewers mar their malt with
water; / When nobles are their tailors' tutors; / No heretics burn'd, but wenches'
suitors; / When every case in law is right; / No squire in debt, nor no poor knight; / When slanders do not live in tongues; / Nor cutpurses come not to throngs; / When usurers tell their gold i' the field; / And bawds and whores do churches build; / Then shall the realm of Albion / Come to great confusion: / Then comes the time, who lives to see't, / That going shall be used with feet. / This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time."

Fool to Lear
Prophecy! 2 halves: first describes the present as the future, and the second describes something that the Fool will never come to know.

"When I desire their leave that I might / pity him, they took from me the use of mine own / house; charged me, on pain of their perpetual / displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for / him, nor any way sustain him."

Gloucester to Edmund
Gloucester trusting Edmund with the knowledge that he is in favor of Lear and not Regan and Goneril. This shows how naive Gloucester is regarding Edmund and his ways.

"I have received a letter this night; 'tis dangerous to be / spoken; I have locked the letter in my closet: / these injuries the king now bears will be revenged / home; there's part of a power already footed: we / must incline to the king. I will seek him, and / privily relieve him: go you and maintain talk with / the duke, that my charity be not of him perceived: / if he ask for me. I am ill, and gone to bed. / Though I die for it, as no less is threatened me, / the king my old master must be relieved."

Gloucester to Edmund
Here Gloucester trusts Edmund further with the location of a letter that would make him a traitor in Goneril and Regan. Big mistake.

"This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke / Instantly know; and of that letter too: /
This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me / That which my father loses; no less than all: / The younger rises when the old doth fall."

Edmund to audience
Following the MO: betraying his father's trust. (twisted!)

"The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind / Doth from my senses take all feeling else / Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!"

Lear to Kent
Again, lamenting his situation, and also revealing that he's going a little insane ("the tempest in my mind").

"Hast thou given all to thy two daughters? / And art thou come to this?"

Lear to Edgar
Showing how incredibly wrapped up in himself Lear is. He's asking Edgar if he's in the exact same situation that he is himself, because self-centered people see their own situations as the worst thing that anyone could ever be in.

"Do poor Tom some / charity, whom the foul fiend vexes"

Edgar to Lear
Edgar meets Lear disguised as Tom o' Bedlam for the first time. He begs for some charity.

"What, have his daughters brought him to this pass? / Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all?"

Lear to Edgar
Again, Lear is incredibly wrapped up in himself and shows this by asking if Edgar is in the same situation, which he considers to be the worst possible.

"He hath no daughters, sir."

Kent to Lear
Once again, Kent is speaking out against Lear. He's metaphorically slapping Lear in the face and saying "Snap out of it Lear! He doesn't have daughters! He's not in your exact situation!"

"Death, traitor! nothing could have subdued nature / To such a lowness but his unkind daughters. / Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers / Should have thus little mercy on their flesh? / Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot / Those pelican daughters."

Lear to Kent
In response to Kent's metaphorical slap in the face, Lear calls his daughters bloodsuckers (baby pelicans were thought to drink their parents' blood).

"wine loved I deeply, dice dearly: and in woman / out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of / ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, / wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey."

Edgar to Lear
Telling Lear the story of his past, in which he had many vices, such as uncountable women, fighting, laziness, greediness, etc.

"True or false, it hath made thee earl of / Gloucester. Seek out where thy father is, that he / may be ready for our apprehension."

Cornwall to Edmund
Whether or not the letter is true (which is evidence that Gloucester is a traitor), it took Gloucester's power away from him and gave it to you. Go get Gloucester so that we can punish him for his traitorous behavior.

"It shall be done; I will arraign them straight."

Lear to Fool
Self-pitying outlook; again, Lear is placing blame everywhere else besides on himself. (His pride wouldn't be able to endure such a hit as taking responsibility for what he himself did wrong.)

"Good friend, I prithee, take him in thy arms; / I have o'erheard a plot of death upon him: / There is a litter ready; lay him in 't, / And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet / Both welcome and protection."

Gloucester to Kent
Gloucester tells Kent (disguised as Caius) to take Lear to Dover, where he can be safe while waiting for the power to come back to him.

"Leave him to my displeasure. Edmund, keep you our / sister company: the revenges we are bound to take / upon your traitorous father are not fit for your beholding."

Cornwall to Edmund
Irony!! Cornwall thinks that because Edmund supposedly saved his father's life, he should react to Gloucester's punishment, when in reality it was Edmund who set Gloucester up in the first place and has now betrayed him.

"What mean your graces? Good my friends, consider / You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends."

Gloucester to Cornwall/Regan/Goneril
Reminding them that they're still in his house and he doesn't want any harm done to him.

"Hold your hand, my lord: / I have served you ever since I was a child; / But better service have I never done you / Than now to bid you hold."

First Servant to Cornwall
The servant, with his dying breath, tells Cornwall to stop torturing Gloucester. This servant and the other two at the end of this scene illustrate a very radical idea implemented by Shakespeare: the servants were more noble than the nobles.

"Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly! / Where is thy lustre now?"

Cornwall to Gloucester('s second eye)
Mocking Gloucester for his traitorous behavior.

"I have received a hurt: follow me, lady. / Turn out that eyeless villain; throw this slave / Upon the dunghill. Regan, I bleed apace: / Untimely comes this hurt: give me your arm."

Cornwall to Regan
He's dying, which is good for her; now she can get with Edmund, the ultimate evil conspirator, with whom she's been having an affair for a while.

"I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; / I stumbled when I saw."

Gloucester to Old Man
Acknowledging how wrong he was in believing Edmund and rejecting Edgar; now he knows of Edmund's treachery.

"As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods, / They kill us for their sport."

Gloucester to Old Man
We are the gods' playthings; they do with us as they please. This echoes Lear's earlier act of placing blame on someone else for his woes.

"'Tis the time's plague, when madmen lead the blind."

Gloucester to Old Man
Talking about Edgar; saying boy, the times must be bad if we have blind men being led around by crazy people.

"There is a cliff, whose high and bending head / Looks fearfully in the confined deep. / Bring me but to the very brim of it, / And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear / With something rich about me. From that place / I shall no leading need."

Gloucester to Edgar
Gloucester wants to commit suicide, so he tells Edgar to take him to a cliff where he can jump off.

"I told him of the army that was landed; / He smil'd at it. I told him you were coming; / His answer was, "The worse." Of Gloucester's treachery, / And of the loyal service of his son, / When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot, / And told me I had turn'd the wrong side out. / What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him; / What like, offensive."

Oswald to Goneril
Talking about Albany turning around and being seemingly on the side of Lear.

"I must change names at home, and give the distaff / Into my husband's hands."

Goneril to Edmund
Since my husband is acting so weird, it's up to me to be the man in the house and ensure that I can keep my power.

"O Goneril, / You are not worth the dust which the rude wind / Blows in your face."

Albany to Goneril
Finally realizing just how evil Goneril is, and calling her out on it.

"Wisdom and goodness to the vild seem vild!"

Albany to Goneril
Goneril, you have gone too far in your quest to gain ultimate power.

"Milk-liver'd man, / That bear'st a cheek for blows."

Goneril to Albany
Mocking Albany for being Christian and turning the other cheek (figuratively). (Divorce court's not too far off.)

"Proper deformity shows not in the fiend / So horrid as in woman."

Albany to Goneril
It's bad enough when men turn evil, but women are even worse.

"O my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall's dead, / Slain by his servant, going to put out / The other eye of Gloucester."

Messenger to Albany
Announcing the death of Cornwall, as well as Gloucester's torture.

"One way I like this well, / But being widow, and my Gloucester with her, / May all the building in my fancy pluck / Upon my hateful life."

Goneril to audience
Regretting that Regan gets to be with Edmund ("my Gloucester").

"Gloucester, I live / To thank thee for the love thou show'dst the King, / And to revenge thine eyes."

Albany to Messenger/himself
This is a true sign that Albany really has turned around and become (somewhat) virtuous.

"Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back, know you no reason?"

Kent to Gentleman
The King of France needed to get back to France so that the audience would still hold him in the highest regard and see him as honorable. This quote is Kent asking a gentleman why the king has done so.

"Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming forth is thought of, which imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger that his personal return was most requir'd and necessary."

Gentleman to Kent
This is in response to Kent asking why the King of France left England. The King needed to return to France so that we would still see him as honorable.

"You have seen / Sunshine and rain at once; her smiles and tears / Were like a better way."

Gentleman to Kent
About Cordelia; her grief is tragic, but beautiful, because it's so authentic.

"Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved, / If all could so become it."

Gentleman to Kent
If everyone expressed sorrow like Cordelia did, people would love it.

"He that helps him take all my outward worth."

Cordelia to Doctor
She will give anything to anyone willing to help her and Lear.

"O dear father, / It is thy business that I go about."

Cordelia to herself (Messenger)
Christ-like; father, I'm doing what you want me to.

"No blown ambition doth our arms incite, But love, dear love, and our ag'd father's right."

Cordelia to Messenger
We will stop Goneril and Regan so that Lear can return to power. We're not trying to start a war, we're just trying to set things right.

"It was great ignorance, Gloucester's eyes being out, / To let him live; where he arrives he moves / All hearts against us."

Regan to Oswald
Realizing that Gloucester is now an emblem of their villainy, so it was a huge mistake to let him live and walk around to tell other people how evil we are.